I am replacing all the wood trim. My car was originally RHD and was converted the LHD. During this conversion a 2.4 wood set was put in and the wood was not restored but painted in wood effect. This has been bugging me so I picked up a restored wood set with proper burl veneer. As I remove the old wood I notice it was very badly installed and aligned. I now need a starting point for the alignment and I think I will use the metal strip under the newspaper tray as my starting point. Is this the smart thing to do?

 

It's a long time since I owned my Mark 2 and even longer since I had the dash area looking like yours, (like mid-80s !). However, if you look to the left side, you'll see two holes for the support bracket for the left side wood assembly. There are two of the same holes on the RH side. These holes are far larger than the studs that go through them to be secured by washers and nuts, so allow some amount of adjustment. Incidentally you'll need a quite small rachet spanner and socket to do up those nuts and contort your body as you do so. Back in the day, ease of assembly was never considered when Jaguar designed a car ! I can't remember the securing method of the two wood assemblies where they but up to the central instrument and switch panel, but there is probably also some degree of movement allowed before things are tightened-up.

 

Close up your centre instrument/switch panel and start from there. That panel is not adjustable and is the main reference point
As Fraser says there is a fair amount of movement available in adjusting the mounting brackets.
Remember that this car was not manufactured by robotic devices which can set up to fractions of a mm accuracy.
The MK2 was assembled by hand and the term commonly used is "fettled".
So, there was a wide range of adjustment available for the assembly line workers.

PS. Never open the instrument/switch panel with the air intake scuttle open.
The air intake lever will foul the bottom of the switch panel and break the plastic strip with the switch names.

 

Somehow the instrument panel in my car is also out of alignment. There is a little bit of wriggle room so I will start by getting that right.
My wood dash components are all newly built so they have none of the brackets in place so I have to remove the fixing from the old (very badly fitted) components. As you mentioned it is going to require a lot of fettling!